Pelican Bay

by Charlotte Douglas

  “And Larry?”

  “I…I haven’t seen him since he stormed out of the house the evening you had supper with me.”

  “Any idea where he is?”

  “Probably staying with one of the guys he hangs out with. I can get you the names.”

  In a lapse of objectivity, I felt sorry for her. “That would help.”

  I headed back toward the crime scene. The sun had cleared the treetops, and an object, partially hidden by a clump of wildflowers beneath a hedge at the far end of the clearing, caught my eye. A clear plastic, two-liter bottle protruded from the orange-and-yellow flowers. Its bottom was shattered, its spout wrapped in duct tape. I called to Adler to bring an evidence bag.

  “What have you got?” he asked.

  With my pen in the spout, I scooped up the bottle. “A homemade silencer. This explains why the neighbors didn’t hear the shot.”

  “You think this was another clinic murder, or was Castleberry merely in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  “The MO’s different, but maybe the killer was afraid the others would be on guard against poison after what happened to Edith and Sophia.” I handed the bag to a technician and made a note of where I’d found it. “If it’s the same killer, he’s given us a break.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Using poison, the killer could have been miles away when Edith and Sophia died. A gun is up close and personal. I’ll find out where Tillett, Dorman, Morelli and Anastasia Gianakis were between sundown and ten last night. You check out the clinic staff and other patients.”

  “It’s going to be a long day,” Adler said. “I’d better get started.” He ambled down the trail toward his SUV parked on Windward.

  I watched him go, and strong hands grasped my shoulders from behind and began to massage the muscles there and in my neck.

  “You’ve been up all night,” Bill said, “and you were tired before all this went down. Go home and grab a few winks before you tackle those interviews.”

  I turned and stepped out of reach of his soothing hands. Much more of that kind of attention, and I’d wish his marriage proposals were serious. “You’ve been here all night, too. What’s your read on this?”

  “An execution-style killing, very different from poison. Could be a different killer, or the same one trying to throw investigators off balance. But if Castleberry’s killer also killed Edith and Sophia, what’s the motive?”

  Fatigue seeped through me like biting cold. “Maybe Karen Englewood’s right, and the killer is someone with a pathological hatred of fat people. What if someone unconnected to the clinic simply sought its patients out in his quest for victims?”

  Bill threw his arm around my shoulder and guided me toward my car. “Don’t try to reason in the shape you’re in. After you drive me home, get some sleep. Being rested will save you time in the long run.”

  My phone was ringing when I arrived home.

  “Margaret,” my mother said when I answered, “where have you been? I tried to reach you before you left for work.”

  “I’ve been working all night, Mother.”

  “But I’ve been calling you for days.” Her voice rang with accusation, as if I’d been purposely avoiding her.

  “I have an answering machine. If you’d left a message, I’d have called you back.”

  A delicate sniff filtered through the line. “Such a vulgar practice, answering machines. I wanted to thank you for the book on Monet. It was very sweet of you, dear.”

  Mother was in an approving and expansive mood, and I was too dead on my feet to enjoy it. “I’m glad you like it, but I have to get some sleep. Can I call you later?”

  “No need. Just pencil in dinner at the club Monday on your social calendar. Cedric has agreed to join us again.”

  Social calendar? She had to be kidding. And I didn’t have the heart to tell her Cedric was on the make for lusty young waiters. “I can’t promise. Work is keeping me busy.”

  “I’ve told you before, Margaret, if you’ll just give up that dirty, common job, I’ll set up a trust fund. You won’t have to work at all.”

  For the first time in my life, I was tempted. Bone-tired and grimy, I stood in the early morning light in my unfamiliar kitchen. Peter Castleberry’s shattered face was etched in my brain and his blood stained my shoes. Thoughts of full nights of sleep with no worries about serial killers or juveniles on a one-way track to perdition lured me to accept her offer.

  “Think about it, darling,” she said. “We could see so much more of each other.”

  Temptation vanished. I said goodbye and hung up. Too weary to climb the stairs, I stretched out on the living room sofa and fell asleep. After what seemed only minutes, my beeper sounded and I stumbled to the phone to call the medical examiner’s office. A glance at the clock told me I’d been asleep less than an hour.

  “Your shooter used a .22,” Doris Cline said, “and fragments of clear plastic are embedded in the entry wound.”

  “That fits with the homemade silencer I found. Anything else?”

  “No signs of struggle. The killer probably came up behind him and fired, caught him completely by surprise. Death was instantaneous.”

  I hung up and headed for the shower. When I’d bathed and dressed in beige slacks and an ivory blouse, my beeper sounded again.

  Kyle Dayton answered the phone at the station. “Ms. Englewood left you a message. Says Castleberry’s mother is Esther Truett.”

  I scribbled the address. Dreading the task ahead, I headed for Largo to inform a mother that her son was dead.

  CHAPTER 15

  Esther Truett lived in a mobile home park off East Bay Drive. I turned at the park’s clubhouse and winded my way through dozens of aluminum houses, disasters waiting to happen when a major hurricane, long overdue in the Tampa Bay area, finally struck. The singlewides were packed cheek by jowl on narrow lots. A resident could sit in his kitchen and watch his neighbor cook supper.

  At Number 112, I parked in the driveway behind an aging Chevy. A row of terra-cotta pots in various sizes, filled with scraggly plants, a pathetic excuse for a garden, edged the carport. I rapped on a jalousie pane of the front door.

  A tall, raw-boned woman with steel-gray hair in a Dutch-boy cut answered the door. She buttoned the jacket of her lavender polyester pantsuit and picked up a worn Bible from the table as if she was going out.

  “Esther Truett?” I showed my identification and introduced myself.

  “What is it? I’m late for my Bible class already.” She made no effort to keep the impatience from her voice.

  “I have some information about your son. May I come in?”

  “No time. What do you want?”

  “It’s bad news, Mrs. Truett.”

  “Has he been arrested? I’m not surprised. I raised him in a good Christian home, never spared the rod, but the Devil got his hands on him. All my prayers couldn’t save him.”

  “Your son is dead. I’m sorry.”

  I waited for the look of shock, the tears, but the angry set of the woman’s strong jaw never wavered.

  “It’s the Lord’s judgment,” she said, “to chastise him for his sins.”

  “Can we go inside? Your son was murdered, and I need to ask you some questions.”

  She heaved a sigh of exasperation and stood aside. “If there’s no getting around it, come in.”

  She faced me with her Bible gripped tightly in both hands, but she didn’t offer me a seat. I glanced around the compact living room of faded upholstered furniture, capped with crocheted doilies. A huge portrait of Christ painted on black velvet hung above a patterned sofa, but no pictures of her son were visible anywhere in the room.

  I turned back to Esther. “You said Peter was killed for his sins. Was he in some kind of trouble?”

  “The worst kind. The threat of hellfire.”

  “Why?”

  “Deadly sins, gluttony and sloth. And failure to honor his father.”

  I surv
eyed the adjoining kitchen and empty hall. “Is his father here?”

  “Dead, since Peter was a baby.”

  “Then how—”

  “Samuel Truett married me when Peter was two, raised Peter like his own son. That man was the salt of the earth. Beat Peter for his own good when his feet strayed from the path, but the boy had no righteousness in his heart. He hated Sam for it. Didn’t even come to his funeral two years ago.”

  “When did you last see your son?”

  “Before Sam died. When Peter failed to pay his final respects, I disowned him, but I still pray night and day for his eternal soul.”

  “Can you think of any reason someone wanted to kill him?”

  “An agent of the Lord, wreaking God’s vengeance.”

  The woman gave me the willies. “Any idea who that agent might be?”

  She shook her head. “The Lord moves in mysterious ways.”

  “He didn’t happen to have any help from you, did he?”

  Her nostrils flared. “How can you say such a thing?”

  “Biblical precedent?”

  “I will pray for you, Detective Skerritt. Blasphemers are doomed to burn in hell.”

  Unfortunately, I supposed every religion had its fanatics. “Aren’t you even curious how Peter died? Whether he was alone, frightened? If he asked for you?”

  Her jaw relaxed, her eyes grew moist, and for a moment, I believed she was human after all. Then she gripped the Bible tighter. “As far as I’m concerned, my son died a long time ago.”

  I choked back my disgust. “Here’s where you can claim the body.”

  I scribbled the telephone number of the medical examiner’s office on the back of my card, laid it on the desk beside the door and left before I blurted my opinion of her. I hoped Castleberry had made it to heaven. His mother had already put him through hell on earth.

  The stiff sea breezes on the terrace at Sophia’s lifted my hair away from the new blotches on my face, the product of my encounter with Esther Truett. I downed another cup of coffee and struggled to keep alert while my body screamed for sleep.

  “Detective Skerritt.” Lester Morelli stood beside me, his body blocking the midmorning sun. “I wanted to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  He slid onto the chair across from me. “For being at Sophia’s service yesterday. That was kind of you.”

  The skin on his face appeared drawn too tight over his cheekbones and bags puffed beneath his eyes. When the waitress approached, he ordered a Bloody Mary.

  “Hair of the dog,” he explained. “Have you found the bastard who killed my wife?”

  “There’s been another murder.”

  “Jesus.” His hands shook as he reached in the pocket of his golf shirt and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. “Who?”

  “Peter Castleberry.”

  He struck a match from a book with Sophia’s embossed in gold letters and lit his cigarette. “That’s a shame. Castleberry wasn’t a likable man, but he had a great talent. Didn’t someone warn him about the vitamins?”

  “Vitamins?”

  “Poison. I thought you warned the other patients after what happened to Sophia.”

  “Castleberry wasn’t poisoned.”

  Morelli drew deeply on his cigarette, then exhaled through his nose. Smoke swirled on the morning breeze. The waitress placed his drink before him, and he removed a leafy stalk of celery before taking a long swallow.

  “What’s going on, Detective?”

  “There’re a number of possibilities.”

  A trace of a smile scudded across his face. “You mean suspects?”

  “Where were you last night between sunset and ten?”

  “And it seems I’m one of them.” He took another drag on his cigarette, then crushed it in a crystal ashtray. “After the funeral yesterday, I gave a luncheon here for Sophia’s relatives and close friends. When it was over, I drove two of her cousins to the airport. I couldn’t face my empty house, so I came back here.”

  “What time did you leave last night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You aren’t sure?”

  “I don’t know. I went to my office when I returned from the airport and had a few drinks. The next thing I knew, I woke up in my bed early today at home. I didn’t know how I got there until I talked with Antonio this morning. He says he drove me home after the restaurant closed, sometime after midnight.”

  Morelli was taking his wife’s death hard. Between cigarettes and alcohol, he’d soon join her if he didn’t get a grip.

  I remembered his confrontation with Sophia’s aunt at the graveside. “Was Anastasia Gianakis at the luncheon yesterday?”

  His face twisted with distaste. “That crazy old bat. I invited her, but she’s convinced herself I’m the one who killed Sophia. Claims I did it for the money, that Sophia was about to leave me. She left me, all right.”

  Tears flooded his eyes. He finished his drink and signaled the waitress for another.

  “Why would Anastasia make such claims?” I asked.

  “She wants Sophia’s money so bad, she can taste it. If she can get me out of the picture, it’s all hers.”

  “She threatened you?”

  He shrugged. “She’s offensive, but harmless.”

  “You don’t think she had a hand in Sophia’s death?”

  He looked surprised. “She did visit the house two days before Sophia died. Sophia wanted to believe her aunt loved her, but I always felt the old woman was more attracted to the Gianakis fortune than her niece.”

  When the waitress brought his second drink, he rose from the table and took his Bloody Mary with him. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve neglected business this past week, and there are things I must take care of.”

  He walked back toward the building with his shoulders hunched, as if a great weight bore down on him. Antonio met him at the door, and the two exchanged words. When Morelli stepped inside, Antonio hurried to my table. “Mr. Morelli said you had some questions.”

  The maître d’ confirmed that Morelli had been in his office from around five-thirty until after midnight the previous night, consuming another bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Antonio had taken him home and put him to bed.

  “What about Dorman?” I asked. “Did he work last night?”

  “We were closed to the public at noon, but Brent worked the luncheon for the funeral guests. After he cleared up from lunch, his back was bothering him again, so he left.”

  “Is he in today?”

  Antonio nodded. “He brought Mr. Morelli to work, since his car is still here from yesterday. I’ll send him to you.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll find him.”

  I passed through the empty main dining room and into the spacious lobby. On my right, a hall led past restrooms to Morelli’s office. The door stood ajar, and Lester sat behind his desk, punching keys on an adding machine.

  To my left, large swinging doors opened into the kitchen, where the staff was preparing lunch. A blast of spice-laden steam hit me as I entered the room. A man wearing the short white cap of a sous chef approached, and I asked for Dorman.

  “He’s on break, out back.” He pointed to a rear entrance.

  I found Dorman doing push-ups behind a row of Dumpsters and overflowing garbage cans. “Pretty good for a guy with a bad back.”

  He jumped to his feet and dusted his hands on the sides of his slacks. “As a matter of fact, exercise helps tone the back muscles. You should try it sometime.”

  “Where did you go yesterday afternoon after you left the restaurant?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer. “Still haven’t caught your killer, eh, Detective? Maybe if they had a man on the job, they’d get better results.”

  I resisted the urge to ram the heel of my palm up his snotty little nose. “Glad to know you’re an equal-opportunity bigot, Dorman. Do you want to answer my question here, or would you rather go down to the station for a cozy chat?”

  “
I got nothing to hide. I went to the Body Shop for another massage, then home. Spent the evening watching television.”

  “Didn’t happen to take a run on the trail after supper?”

  “The trail closes at dark. I run in the mornings before I work out at the gym, so I turn in early. Went to bed last night, right after watching JAG.”

  “Alone?”

  “What is this? You get your thrills from poking into other people’s sex lives? Yeah, sorry to disappoint you, but I was alone.”

  “Do you remember Peter Castleberry?”

  He wrinkled his nose in obvious dislike. “Wish I could forget. He’s a blimp and a crybaby. Squealed like a stuck pig every time I drew his blood. Complained I hurt him on purpose. I couldn’t stand the sight or the smell of the guy.”

  “And no one can vouch that you were at home all evening?”

  “What is this?” His eyes narrowed. “Another fatso bite the dust?”

  “Sorry to see you so broken up about it.” I pivoted on my heel, disgusted, then turned back. “There’s one muscle in that finely tuned physique of yours in serious need of development, Dorman.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Your heart.” I left him standing alone among the garbage, where he belonged.

  Stephanie Tillett answered my telephone call and told me her husband was playing his Saturday round of golf at the country club. I left Sophia’s and drove north, but instead of turning west into Pelican Point where Morelli lived, I headed east toward Osprey Lake.

  The long, low clubhouse of the Osprey Country Club sprawled on the lake’s western shore with an Olympic-size swimming pool on one end and a pro shop and golf-cart garages on the other, flanking the central dining rooms and bar. The sounds of kids cannonballing off the pool’s diving board drifted across the grounds as I left my car. When I reached the pro shop, I learned Tillett would be finishing his round soon and that he always reported afterward to the nineteenth hole.

  I wandered toward the bar to wait, but a formidable man in a black suit blocked my way. He gazed down his aquiline nose from a distinguished height. “This club is for members only.”

  I had reached in my pocket for my badge when a hand grasped my elbow.